More marked and authoritative approaches were made simultaneously in England itself. The man who had been instructed by Alba to keep an eye on Spanish affairs unofficially when de Spes left England was Antonio de Guaras, an Aragonese merchant living on Dowgate Hill, Thames Street. He had been established in London for many years as a prosperous importer of Spanish produce, and had a perfect craze for writing descriptions of public events and taking part in public affairs; a zealous busybody, whose flamboyant patriotism and Catholicism had made him the friend and companion of successive Spanish ambassadors, especially of de Spes. In the anti-Catholic excitement in May, 1569, his house had been raided by the officers of the law deputed to destroy superstitious images, and a considerable stock of church ornaments of this description seized. One half of the stock was piled into a heap before Guaras’ door and burnt, the other half being similarly treated by the Standard in Cheapside; whilst the people, who only a dozen years before, under Mary, had been so devoutly Catholic, cried in derision that they were burning the Spanish gods.[205] Since that time, as Guaras had been the principal importer of such wares from Spain, he had shown himself as little as possible in the streets to avoid unpleasantness, though of course he, like so many other Spaniards interested, had tried his hand again and again to make some private arrangement for the ransom of the Spanish commercial property seized by the English.